Praise Him

Well, good morning. It's not good when a preacher can't come up with the right words, but when we are on furlough and I have the chance of speaking to churches that support us, I struggle to come up with the right words of thanks. I need you to know that we often think about you. You are the ones that give money so that we can be where we are in China and serve the Lord there. You are the ones who pray for us and allow us to fight the spiritual battles that we need to fight in trying to minister in a dark place. So I just want you to know how grateful I am for Jefferson Park Baptist Church for your many years now of support and prayers. In addition to that, when I come here to Jefferson Park, I want to communicate the profound debt that I owe to Keith Goad, your pastor, and to Lisa. For years of friendship, we need relationships as missionaries that can give us the kind of fiber in our beings and just the sustaining encouragement that allows us to do hard things. And Keith and Lisa have been that for us for many years now. Now, usually in my introduction, I try in some way to make fun of Keith because, well, because it's easy to do. But I think it's important for you guys to know very sincerely when your pastor is being used outside of this congregation. Keith has been with us in Asia several times. He was a part of helping us get the association of churches that we're working with started. And so that's a gift that you have given to us. So thank you for sending your pastor. Please continue to be willing to do that, to extend the ministry of Jefferson Park to other places. Now, this morning, I've chosen as a text for us not a normal one for me. As a missionary, I often get asked to speak on missions, and I don't usually choose to do so. It could just be because when you get asked to do something a lot, you're kind of like, ah, don't peg me as the missionary guy. I'd like to preach on something else. But I have personal reasons for choosing Psalm 67 this morning. These seven short verses were used by God in my own life to call me to the mission field some 20 years ago. They've been used profoundly in my life, and I think that they are a very comprehensive view of the Christian life. and one that is useful to any of us as Christians to think about what does a transformed life look like? If we're gonna live lives in this world that are transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, I believe that this prayer captures the kind of vision and the kind of heart that God wants for us to have. And let's be honest, transformation is something that we desperately need, isn't it? I mean, we know we're not supposed to be conformed to this world, and yet we're so easily conformed to those around us. The conventional wisdom of the way that we're supposed to live life, the way in which the world around us tells us to play it safe, and to accumulate resources, and to try to live as comfortably as we possibly can. We're so easily conformed to that sort of a vision. And what we need is to be reminded that God has set before us a much greater vision, a heavenly one, one in which we're able to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him, even if that means leaving what is comfortable and moving towards need. So that's the vision that I have for us this morning, is a vision of transformation. One other reason that I'm drawn to this text is because I believe the church is under siege by what is known as the prosperity gospel. I don't know if you guys use that language here or talk about it much, but there is an alternate version of the Christian life that is very, very popular in Asia. Where I serve, there are whole churches that are completely led astray by this idea that faithfulness as a Christian is designed to get you divine favor and allow you to live the life that you've always dreamed of. That's a perversion, obviously, of the Christian life, but it is so popular. And I think even in conservative churches like this one and the churches that I serve, the prosperity gospel can sneak in unawares. I was reminded of this last summer, actually. I was diagnosed with cancer. And when something like that happens to a pastor, you find out quickly what your congregation thinks about theologically. Because as I shared with my congregation that I had been diagnosed with cancer, I was going to enter a treatment plan. I was at the door at the back of the church shaking hands with people as they went out. And, you know, the thing that I heard the most is that my congregants were very confident in my prognosis. Not because I had any medical doctors in the congregation. I'm not aware of any doctors. But they were confident that I was going to be okay because I was a really good pastor. Somehow they thought that my goodness as a pastor and as a person would be a shield against the malignant carcinoma in my body. Now they meant it very kindly and I understood their desire just to say that they hoped that I would be okay. But what it revealed to me is that on a functional level, deep down for many of them, they thought that if they lived a good life, and if I lived a good life, that that would mean we would not get sick, that we would not experience disease, and that we would have a kind of prosperous life. So Psalm 67, I think, is essential for us to be reminded of the true gospel. It's not a gospel that tells us that we are to procure blessing through faithfulness for the purpose of enjoying a good life, but rather we are blessed through grace for the purpose of helping others find joy in God. Simply put, God always blesses his people to be a blessing to others. So let's again read the psalm. I think it'd be good for us to read it a second time. I hope that it's in front of you that you can follow along, and I think it'd be useful for you to take notes as we work our way through this prayer. Psalm 61, sorry, Psalm 67, verse one. To the choir master with stringed instruments, a psalm, a song. May God be gracious to us and bless us. and make his face to shine upon us. That your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. For you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its increase. God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us. Let all the ends of the earth fear him." If you're taking notes, I want us to see four things about this marvelous prayer. Four things you can write down. Number one, the content of the prayer. The content of the prayer. Number two, the motivation of the prayer. The motivation of the prayer. Number three, the scope of the prayer. The scope of the prayer. And number four, the fuel of the prayer. The fuel of the prayer. So let's think first of all about the content of the prayer. We're looking at verse 1. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us. There's great depth in just this one line of prayer here. It's a comprehensive prayer. First, it's a humble prayer. He says, be gracious to us. To ask God to be gracious is to realize that he doesn't have to help us. We aren't deserving of his help. You know, there's a pride sometimes to the way that we pray to God. We go through something difficult, and we cry out to God and say, God, why are you letting this happen to me? Why is this hard thing going on in my life right now? In such moments, we're thinking that we actually deserve better. But the prayer here knows his place as the creature, not the creator, and as a sinner who is in need of grace. God, I don't deserve this, but would you be pleased to be gracious to me? Would you give me what I don't deserve? Be gracious to us. You know, friends, our lack of humility often shows up in the fact that we don't pray at all about something. I want you to think about something that's going on in your life that makes you anxious. a kind of depressing thing that as you walk out of here, something pops back into your mind. What is that thing that is difficult for you right now? It could be your work, something going on in the workplace that's difficult. It could be a relationship that's strained or broken. It could be a health issue going on in your life. But whatever it is, it dominates the scene of your thought life. Now I want you to stop and think about the frequency and intensity of your prayer around that thing. Are you praying to God for help? Are you praying for his grace in the midst of that trial? You know, when we pray, we're choosing a different route from self-sufficiency. We're humbling ourselves before God and saying, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. God be gracious to us. It's a humble request. But notice something else about this prayer. It's a direct request. He says, and bless us. Bless may be a familiar word to us in church. It's a word we often throw around and say, God bless them. God bless us. God bless me. It may lose its clarity and its power if we forget that behind it is a clear and direct and simple request to God to make us successful in whatever we are currently doing. We're saying, God, give me the power for success in this thing that I'm currently undertaking. When the student prays it over her studies, she's asking for clarity of mind to learn the material. When you pray it on your way to the office in the morning, you're praying for your work to prosper and your career to go well. When the father prays it over his family, he's praying that they would be protected and they would be secure and that they would be growing. When a pastor prays it over his church, he's praying for spiritual growth in the members. Bless us. Make us fruitful. Establish the work of our hands. It's a direct request. So a humble request, a direct request, but it's also a relational request. He says, and make his face to shine upon us. A shining face is a picture of friendship and affection. It's a picture of love. I've noticed that my kids are very sensitive to my face. Sometimes I'm not angry, but my face doesn't look right. and it makes them upset, or sometimes I am angry, but I'm trying to exercise a measure of self-control, and so I get my face to be normal, and I say something to my kids, but they can see through it, and they can say, Dad, your words sound normal, but your face doesn't look right. Well, this is the opposite of that. This is a face that even before you hear any word, It conveys peace and joy and affection. It's a face of a friend seeing you for the first time in a long time. It's the face of a groom looking down the aisle at his new bride. It's the face of a parent watching a child achieve some new milestone. It's a shining face, and that's why the Bible, especially the Psalms, regularly talks about beholding God's face as a measure of relational closeness. So Psalm 11.7 says, for the Lord is righteous. He loves righteous deeds. The upright shall behold his face. But there's also a reality for the believer that sometimes God's face can seem hidden from us. So Psalm 13.1, how long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? In times of struggle, God can seem far from us, can't he? David here seems, he feels forgotten and as if God is elusive and hiding from him. So back to our passage, a prayer for God's face to shine is a prayer not for God to love us, he already does, but for us to experience that love and that affection from him. God, let me see your shining face and be encouraged. Maybe you're here this morning and you would say it's been a long time. since you felt love and affection from God, where you've really experienced it and felt close to him. Make this your prayer this morning. God, let your face shine upon me. So it's a humble prayer, a direct prayer, and a relational prayer. But there's one more thing we should notice before we move on as we think about the content of the prayer. And that's that it's not merely an individual prayer, is it? I mean, it's a prayer that you and I might pray in our prayer closet, that place where we pray by ourselves to God. I think we should pray this prayer individually. But the pronouns here are all plural. It's all, be gracious to us, and bless us, and make your face to shine upon us. So the prayer is not merely concerned about himself, but the entire covenant community. You know, I've been working with churches in China, and I've noticed that they tend to be much stronger than churches in the West about the prayer meeting of the church, about gathering as an entire body for prayer. So most of the churches that I work with, they have a morning service just like this, and they will go away to eat lunch, And then after lunch, they will all return for a prayer meeting that will be an hour and a half into the afternoon. Now, that's a disaster if you have young children. I mean, their children just be sleeping on the ground and on chairs and everywhere around. You know, it kind of cuts out any opportunity to do sports on Sunday afternoon. It takes the day, but they make a point of gathering for prayer. I would guess that more than 75% of the members come back for that prayer service. I think you can tell a lot about the strength of a church by who shows up to the prayer meeting. You know, Paul tells the Colossian church to devote themselves to prayer, devote themselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. It's worth asking ourselves how committed we are, not just to our own times of prayer, but to corporate times of praying together as a church. Well, that's the content of the prayer. And we should ask ourselves if we are praying and if we're praying like this. But there's a question I think that comes from verse one. Isn't this kind of a self-centered prayer? I mean, nobody's going to argue with prayer for blessing and for grace and for God's shining face upon us. Isn't this a little bit selfish? What keeps this prayer from being self-centered? I think that moves us to our next point, the motivation of the prayer. Why should we pray like this? Look again at verse 2. That your way may be known on earth. You're saving power among all nations. So why is the psalmist praying this prayer? What is the goal of his prayer? We see that it's a goal that's outside of himself. He wants God's way to be known on earth. His saving power among all nations. When it says God's way there, it's a metaphor for his truth. So Psalm 25 says, make me know your ways, O Lord, lead me in your truth. Or Psalm 119 verse 35, lead me in the way of your commandments, for I delight in it. So he's praying that God's truth would be revealed to people who don't know it, that it would be known on earth, that the knowledge of the Bible would flourish and spread. And then he gets even more specific. What aspect of God's way does he want to be known by people who don't know it? He says God's saving power. And when we hear that phrase, our thoughts might run immediately to salvation from sin. And it certainly means that here, but in an Old Testament context, salvation means deliverance. It means deliverance from all external evil, as well as all internal evil. And only the Lord has the power to deliver, the power to save us from the world and the flesh and the devil. The psalmist is praying for this saving power to be known by those who don't know it, and to be known among all nations. Now before we consider these nations he's praying for and the scope of the prayer, I just want us to see the extraordinary balance here from praying that God would bless and then praying that we would be a blessing to others. Bless me so that your truth and your salvation could be known by others. It is, of course, true that God blesses us for our own sake. He loves us. He wants our good. He delights to share himself with us. But there's another side to this blessing. It comes to us for the sake of someone else. Blessing puts us under obligation in that sense. There's a sense of responsibility to any blessing that God has given to you. Whether it's that we so respond to God's blessing that others see a difference in our lives, or that there's some way in which he wants us to be generous with that blessing to others. Blessing is granted in order that the world may know his salvation. The mental image that I have of this is as a pipeline. China, as you may know, is starting to consume a vast amount of the world's resources, and they're building a great network of pipelines in the nation of China that stretch out into Central Asia and Russia and all the way to Europe. Well, a pipeline is all about letting something flow. And that's the idea here. If you stop and catalog the ways that God has blessed you, you should think of yourself as a pipeline of those blessings to travel somewhere. You could think about the material blessings that you've been given. You could think about the physical blessings that you have in terms of your health. You could think about relational blessings and the relationships that you have been blessed with, or spiritually in terms of the resources that are right here in this nation, in this city, in this church. All of those things are supposed to be channeled through a pipeline of blessing. And I don't mean hypothetically. I don't mean rhetorically. I don't mean potentially, but really and actually. You and I are supposed to be a pipeline of blessing, a river of blessing. You know, the opposite might be to think about a reservoir. A reservoir is designed to collect and accumulate. But the way Spurgeon says it, Maybe a swamp is a better alternative to reservoir. Listen to what Spurgeon says about this very text. There is no vibrant Christian who is not ministering to others. If you are languishing in your spiritual faith, it may be in part because there is no outward ministry. Just as a pond can become a tepid swamp if it has no outflow, so Christianity becomes lifeless if there is no giving of ourselves in ministry to others. I think the same could be true of a church as a whole. If there is a Christian community that has outflow, it's a healthy Christian community. I came to faith in Christ in college and at JMU, just up the road, in part because I saw a community of Christians that were growing in their relationship with God, and they were loving one another. I found it irresistibly attractive. I wanted to be in that community, and they invited me in. They made it clear that they wanted to be a pipeline of the blessing to me. Our church in China has experienced great growth over the last years, almost completely because there are a few members in that congregation that take it upon themselves to constantly be inviting new people into our midst. I sometimes get asked, and if your church is growing numerically, people want to know why. I have nothing to say. I can just point to these several people and say, they just never stop inviting people. These members understand. that it's part of their duty not to wait for their pastor to tell them they should be evangelistic. They simply constantly are doing it. I wonder if you have this mindset, this idea of being a pipeline of blessing. So young people, students in our midst, do you look around at your fellow classmates and those on your sports teams and those around you in the activities that you do and think to yourself, I should be praying for them. I should be looking for opportunities to talk to them about God. When you think about your financial resources, do you think primarily about accumulation or about stewardship? Saving is certainly a biblical principle, but not hoarding. All of us should consider whether we're doing as much as we can to take the blessing of material prosperity and invest in God's way and his saving power being spread through local outreach as well as cross-cultural missions. Some of us need to take stock of how we're using our time and our giftings in the context of our local church. One of the clearest correlations I see as a pastor between those who are growing is those who are serving in the church. Conversely, those who are merely showing up to one gathering a week and are only marginally invested in the ministry of the church, they're often the ones who are telling me that they don't feel like they're growing very much as a Christian. The problem, as Spurgeon says, is that spiritual reservoirs become more like a swamp. We need to get that spiritual water flowing again in ministry to others. So let me just ask you, who is it that you can minister to this coming week? Who has God put around you in your neighborhood, in your community, in your workplace, that you can be praying for and looking for opportunities to share Christ with? Whatever you do, think of yourself as called to be a pipeline of blessing to others, because God always blesses his people for that purpose. That's what drives the prayer of Psalm 67, this motivation. Who can I bless? Who can I help to know his way? Who can we communicate your saving power to? Now, thirdly, we need to think about what is downstream from this. If God always blesses his people to be a blessing to others, what's the scope of this prayer? How far is he going to extend this? That's our third point, the scope of the prayer. And those last two words of verse 2, all nations, they point to just how large the vision of this psalm is. The psalmist, think about this, as a person in ancient Israel, he had no ability to travel very widely. He couldn't travel by plane as we can today and be anywhere in the world in 24 hours. No, he's praying for people that he will never see, and yet he thinks that that is what is downstream from God's blessing to him. Look at how many times the words peoples and nations are used there. Verse 3, let the peoples praise you, let all the peoples praise you. Then in verse 4, let the nations be glad, for you judge the peoples and guide the nations of the earth. Verse 5, let the peoples praise you, let all the peoples praise you. And then in verse 6, he talks about the earth. Verse seven, all the ends of the earth. He's repeating this again and again, I think because he doesn't want us to miss it. He doesn't want there to be any doubt about the global nature of the mission of God as it extends through his people. Now why would there be any doubt? Why would he need to emphasize this so particularly? Well, I think part of it is that God's people have a history of forgetting this very point. They forget the scope of their calling. The nations that are mentioned here to the people of Israel were often nations that they were disgusted with, nations that they looked at with great fear or even hatred at times rather than with mercy. That's the powerful message of the Book of Jonah. Remember that wayward prophet that was actually angry that God would show himself merciful and gracious to the people of Nineveh. So because we are so prone to miss this, there are four texts that I want you to write down to see this along with Psalm 67. These are five texts that I think are essential to seeing the all-nations emphasis of the entire Bible. The first one is Genesis 12, which was read earlier to us, that God said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you'll be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. It's all the way back in the first book of the Bible, God announcing his plan to bless every people group on earth through Abram. Second text, Isaiah 11, verse nine, very familiar statement in the Old Testament. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, that there will be no place on the dry ground of planet earth where the glory of the Lord is not known. The third text is the one behind me in the stained glass window, Matthew 28, 18. Go and make disciples of all nations. As Jesus comes on the scene, he announces himself and the risen Christ as the one commissioning the apostles and the disciples to go and preach the gospel to all the peoples. The last is Revelation 5-9, where we see at the end of time the peoples gathered before the throne, and they sing a new song saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. So Jesus planned, he foretold, he commissioned the church, and he revealed in a vision to John the fulfillment of his ways being known on earth and his salvation among all nations. The end envisions the peoples praising God, all the peoples praising him. They are glad and continually singing for joy. You know, I think it's sometimes distressing to read the news. I've been reading recently about the tensions between China and the U.S. which affect us obviously as Americans living in China. The trade war that's going on seems to be getting bitter. And there's great fear that can come to us as we think about what's going to happen as these global powers are rivals with each other. I have friends who live in the Middle East. They're constantly wondering if they're going to be able to remain where they are. because of political and religious pressures. I think as I come back, one of the things that I notice the most is that US news websites delight to incite fear in people. They seem to put out headlines mainly because they grab attention and convince people that there is great danger around every corner. That of course is what drives ratings and gets clicks and attention. But God's global plan, as we just read about it, points not to the splintering of the nations, but to the gathering of the nations in worship of him. Do you notice that? I think that has some very specific application for us as Christians. What does it look like for you and I to be world Christians, to be people whose hearts are affected in striving for the glory of God among all peoples. I want to suggest to you four points of application. The first is that you should be praying for the nations individually and as a church. Get a copy of the book Operation World, which catalogs prayer requests for all the different nations on Earth. Or simply take whatever nation is in the news and turn it into a prayer. for God to spread the gospel in that place. It'd be a great thing for fathers to do with their families over an evening meal, just to lead them in prayer for a different nation each night. So be praying individually and as a church for the nations. Secondly, you should send your pastors and your people on ministry efforts near and far. It's one of the things that has encouraged me the most about getting to know this church. This is something that I can see you're committed to. But make a big deal of this. It's a statement of your intention to be used as much as God wills in the fulfillment of your own prayers. Be ascending church. Third, you should be looking for people from different places in Charlottesville to extend the hand of friendship and hospitality. I know as someone who's been living in a country that's not my home country, how significant it is when local people extend a hand of friendship and hospitality. There are refugee communities in Charlottesville here, I know, and there are people coming here for education or work. Be looking for them. Invite them into your midst. And fourth, you should continue investing in missionaries and looking to raise them up from your own number. What a joy and what a gift, even just hearing about the couple going to Sweden, excited to think about the extension of the ministry of this church to another place. So four ways that we can be world Christians and apply the scope of this prayer. But fourth and finally, I want to think about what fuels this prayer, because you and I know that we should be praying. It's something we hear about often. What fuels our prayer? What is going to give us the heart and the desire and to actually make it happen? Maybe you notice that there's a repeated refrain there in verse three and five. Did you notice that that was repeated? Let the peoples praise you. Let all the peoples praise you. You know what actually happens with that as kind of a bracket is that verse 4 in between them is shown to be the very center and focus of this psalm. Look again at verse 4. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon the earth. Why is it that the nation should find their joy in God? Why should they seek to know his ways and his saving power? It's interesting here that the prayer points to the kingship of God over the nations. It says he judges them with equity and guides the nations of the earth. I think that that tells us three different things about God's kingly rule over the nations that can serve as fuel for us First, God judges with equity. It means that God is evaluating the behavior of the nations. He is even now holding them accountable. So the leaders of the United States are being held accountable for how they behave in relationships with those outside and inside this nation. The Chinese leaders are being held accountable for the ongoing crackdown on religious freedom. Leaders in the Middle East are being held accountable for not allowing the preaching of the gospel and the worship of people according to freedom of conscience. Though justice is delayed in whatever ways these leaders are found to be wicked, it will nonetheless come. Because God is the true king, he will judge with equity. That's of great comfort to persecuted peoples the world over. It's a precious truth. God will hold them accountable. But secondly, he guides the nations of the earth. That is to say, as Proverbs 21.1 says, that the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. As disjointed and as depressing as politics may seem globally and locally, the Christian can have confidence that it's all being guided by God's hand to a conclusion that he has chosen. That means that when an individual church is shut down because the authorities do not allow them to gather any longer, that church can say, God is still on his throne and he's still going to guide even this persecution to the end of all peoples worshiping before him. So what do you have when you have this kind of a king that is judging with equity, and he's guiding the nations of the earth? Well, you have joy, friends. Let the peoples be glad and sing for joy. Why joy? Why would the result of God's kingly rule be joy? Well, it's a reminder, friends, that once you and I lived without any hope of the future. We were as lost people uncertain of where we would end up and what would our eternal destiny be. We were lost people without direction. People whose lives had no point. And yet at some point in our lives, God came to us in the person of someone who shared the gospel with us. And we understood that though we were a sinner and separated from him, yet because of the work of Christ, we could be redeemed. And we could know again our Heavenly Father. Brothers and sisters, we were saved because of the work of our King. And that leads us to great joy. I think about atheists in China that I have known for many years who told me they were raised to believe that there was no God and that the material dream was all there was. And as I see those materialists become people who know what's truly valuable as they find faith in Christ, I can see joy in them. I think about people I've known that worship idols of all kinds, and yet when they come to faith in Christ and they discover the one true and living God, there's joy on their face. When I think about those who were so self-centered and taught to believe that exalting themselves above all is the pathway to life. And they find that in Christ, finally turning their eyes from their selves is the way to true freedom. I see joy on their face. Friends, that is what makes this psalm, I think, a psalm of praise. It isn't that God needs praise from us. It is rather that praise is the natural overflow of those who have found joy in God. I like what C.S. Lewis says about praise. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are. The delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered some new author and not be able to tell anyone how good he is, to come suddenly at the turn of a road upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur, and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch, or to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. No, we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise completes the enjoyment. And that ultimately is the message of this song. God has blessed us. We delight to share it with others. And our prayer is that the enjoyment of God would not stop until it's been extended to all the peoples of the earth. So as we conclude, I wonder if you'd be willing to make this your prayer this morning. I wondered if you'd be willing to stop and just take stock of all the ways in which God has blessed you. I wonder if you'd be willing to leave praying, God, would you make me a channel, a pipeline of blessing to others this week? As you do so, we ought to remember the Lord Jesus Christ who prayed these very things for his people. The very end of the Gospel of Luke, the risen Christ led his disciples out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and he blessed his disciples. He prayed a blessing over them. I don't know if it was the words of Psalm 67, but he prayed a blessing over them. And while he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem, listen to this, with great joy. and we're continually in the temple, blessing God. The commission that he's given you and I as his disciples is one of great joy. And it's one in which we pray that the blessing we've enjoyed would go out to all peoples. Let's pray together. Our Father, you've been so very good to us. We thank you. We do ask that you would use us individually in this church as a whole to extend the blessing to people around this great city, this great nation, and even throughout the world. Though there are peoples that we may never see this side of heaven, we pray with confidence nonetheless that they would know your ways and your saving power as a result of our prayers this morning. For we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.